Man Trouble

by Melanie Craft

  She hung up on him, leaving him sitting there, staring in stunned disbelief at the silent receiver in his hand.

  CHAPTER 19

  On the morning of January fourth, Molly was awakened by the sound of the phone. She groaned and rolled over to squint at the clock. It was a little before eight A.M., not early by her usual schedule, but classes didn't resume until the middle of the month, and she had been celebrating her vacation by lounging in bed until nine.

  Who would be calling at this hour? Even Carter knew better than to bother her before eight. He had been phoning for the past two days, after Jake had made the brilliant move of asking him for her number.

  On the fourth ring, her answering machine picked up. Molly lay dozing under her comforter, feeling too warm and snug to move. The machine beeped, and then she heard her mother's voice, fluttering with anxiety.

  “Molly? Are you there? Your father and I…we're just so shocked. We can't believe the news, and we don't understand why you didn't tell us. Your father heard about it from the neighbors when he was out for his morning walk…”

  What? Molly frowned and lifted her head to listen.

  “It's all over the newspapers! I heard that it was on the front page of USA Today. Oh, honey, everyone is talking about it, and they're calling us to ask about you. We don't know what to think…”

  Molly sat bolt upright in bed, feeling as if her heart had jumped into her throat and cut off her air supply.

  This can't be happening.

  Jake couldn't have gone ahead with his plan without her consent. He couldn't have been crazy enough to announce the engagement to the press, thinking that such a move would maneuver her into a position where she would have no choice but to play along. Could he?

  She lunged for the phone. “Mom?”

  “Molly!” Her mother sounded almost tearful. “I'm so glad you're there. Ginny Goldman told me that she saw it on Good Morning, Milwaukee! I can't believe that we found out like this.”

  “It's not true, Mom,” Molly exclaimed. “I swear, it's all a mistake.”

  “Your father is so upset that he can't speak. He wouldn't eat his breakfast, and now he's locked himself in his study.”

  “Mom, listen to me. Tell Dad that it's a lie. I am not engaged to marry Jake Berenger, no matter what he's been saying to the press. He's crazy, and he's trying to force me to cooperate with a plan to—”

  “What?” Mrs. Shaw said, confused. “Engaged? To who? A crazy person? Oh, honey, I don't understand any of this. But I'm so glad to hear that it's not true. I knew it. I knew that there had to be some kind of mistake. Of course you would never have written that awful novel Pirate Gold!”

  Model? Princess? You'd Never Guess by Looking at Her!

  An anonymous source has revealed the true identity of Sandra St. Claire, the author of the international best seller and cult phenomenon novel Pirate Gold. Rumors and misinformation—apparently started by the marketing department at Leighton House, Ms. St. Claire's publisher—have depicted the mysterious author as everything from a top model to a member of a European royal family, but the Enquirer has confirmed that Sandra St. Claire is actually the pen name of Dr. Mary Margaret Shaw, a professor at Belden College in Wisconsin. Dr. Shaw was not available for comment…

  Molly's mother had been wrong when she said that the story was on the front page of USA Today. It was not. It was on the front page of the Life section, inside. It was also in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, and the National Enquirer. After that, Molly had stopped looking.

  In each case the article was brief, said something similar in tone, and was accompanied by Molly's faculty photo from the Belden Web site, showing her sitting stiffly at her desk, rows of books lining the walls behind her. Her hair was flat and muddy, and the light of the flash reflected off of her glasses and her colorless face, giving her a deer-in-the-headlights look.

  After her mother's phone call, Molly had thrown on her clothes, wrapped herself in her new black wool coat, and rushed to the Belden bookstore, which was connected to the coffee shop where she went every morning to pick up her daily double latte. Her newspaper-and-caffeine stop was a normal part of her routine, and for one moment, as she stepped into the warm and crowded building, it seemed as if nothing had changed.

  Then, someone saw her.

  Conversation ceased abruptly, silence moving in a wave through the store like a fast-spreading virus, and Molly found herself standing just inside the front door, staring into a sea of stunned faces.

  “Professor Shaw!” cried Jessica Wong, one of Molly's Intro to British Colonial History students from the past semester. She was working behind the register, and a tabloid newspaper was open on the counter in front of her.

  Molly looked around, trying to control the surge of panic rising from her stomach. Her heart thudded, and she felt dizzy. It was just like one of her dreams, but it was really happening. There was Kay Grotsky, from the Economics department, standing by the magazine rack, staring at her. There was Christopher Polk, from her senior seminar, holding an espresso and staring at her. There was Professor Sommers, her father's friend, with Mrs. Sommers, and Mike Kennedy from English, and—Oh, God, Molly thought—Rachel Feinstein, clutching the New York Post, staring at her. Everyone in the bookstore, everyone in the coffee shop—everyone in Belden, Wisconsin, as far as Molly could tell—had frozen in midsentence and stopped to gawk.

  Molly took a deep, shaky breath. Dead Professor Walking, she thought. And she had been nervous about causing a stir with her new dress and haircut. Her nightmare had just come true, and there was nothing to do now but march forward.

  Up, up, dear, said Elaine's voice in her mind. And smile. You're being watched.

  Molly lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and smiled at the crowd as if she didn't have a care in the world.

  “Good morning,” she said into the silence. “I hear that I'm in the news.”

  David Fowler, the Dean of Faculty at Belden College, had a corner office in the main administration building, a sandstone mansion that had once been the home of Alfred Pottsworth Belden, the railroad tycoon whose foresight and funds had created Belden College in 1872. The decor in Dean Fowler's office had changed little from the original Victorian scheme, and over the fireplace hung a copy of the famous oil portrait of the venerable A. P. Belden himself. He glowered down at Molly as she approached one of the leather armchairs facing the dean's desk. Behind the desk was Dean Fowler, wearing the same expression.

  “Professor Shaw,” he boomed. “Sit down.”

  Molly sat. It was eleven A.M., and she was still numb from the shocks of the morning. She had stayed at the bookstore long enough to ascertain the extent of the leak, then fled back to her apartment. Five messages were waiting on her answering machine, and one of them was from Dean Fowler, requesting that she come to his office immediately.

  “You've seen this, I assume?” The dean pushed the USA Today article across his desk toward Molly. “And this. And this.”

  More papers followed, including the Daily Star, which had helpfully supplied a voluptuous sketch of the imaginary Sandra St. Claire to contrast with the real-life Molly Shaw. Molly glanced at it and winced.

  “Our Public Relations Office is being besieged with calls from reporters asking about you, Dr. Shaw. If anyone tried to contact us for another reason—to discuss our press release about Janet Heinrich's recent National Science Foundation grant, for example—I doubt that they would be able to get through.”

  “Oh, dear,” Molly said. “I'm really very sorry about all of this. I'm sure it'll die down soon…”

  “Let's hope so,” said the dean grimly. “In the meantime, President Dickerson has decided that we will not comment on this matter. Our public relations staff is not accustomed to working with the Globe, the Star, and the Enquirer. This is not the sort of publicity that we want for Belden College.”

  Molly nodded.

  “Professor Shaw,” the dean continued, “I've known your father
for thirty years, and I consider him a personal friend, which is why I supported your application for a position here at Belden. The Shaw name is a famous name, and an honorable one. It is a name that your father has linked to scholarship of the highest quality. I consider his name and his reputation, like that of Belden College itself, to be sacrosanct. I had hoped—no, I had expected—that you would carry on that tradition of excellence.”

  Molly's hands were knotted together in her lap. She stared down at them, feeling miserable, saying nothing. What could she say? Dean Fowler was right. She had embarrassed herself, her father, and her school. The papers had all made a point of mentioning that she was a professor at Belden College, and the daughter of the famous historian Stanford Shaw. Some had reported it simply as fact, others had used the opportunity to mock Belden's arrogant, elitist reputation.

  The dean sighed, shaking his head. “Professor Shaw, I've known you since you were a child. Your father has always been very proud of you. Why you would do something like this to him, to us—”

  “Excuse me,” Molly said suddenly. “But I didn't do it to anyone. I did it for myself. It had nothing to do with anyone else. That was why I used a pseudonym. I never meant for it to become public.”

  “That may be so, but the scandal is only part of the problem. Your novel was more than six hundred pages long. Having written several books myself, I know that such a large project takes a great deal of time. It would have been wiser to spend that time doing work to benefit the academic community—work that does not require a pseudonym. Your choice does not reflect the Belden College Principles.”

  “I know the College Principles,” Molly said stubbornly, “and I live up to them. I've been producing academic work, and I'm a good teacher. I get some of the highest marks on campus on the student evaluations. Even my father doesn't score as well as I do.”

  “Students enjoy showmanship,” said the dean. “But this is not a popularity contest, Dr. Shaw. This is not American Idol. We at Belden want our faculty to show absolute commitment to their academic research. Someone whose strength is primarily in teaching would be better suited to a state university, where she would need to hold the attention of a lecture hall filled with football players.”

  Molly recoiled. “Am I being fired?” she asked.

  “No,” said Dean Fowler. “I would never do that to your father. It would kill him. But I have an obligation to the school, as well. You're free to finish out the academic year with us, Dr. Shaw. But your tenure review is coming up in May, and I feel that I should tell you now that you are unlikely to be offered a long-term position at Belden College.”

  Molly walked slowly across the quad. The day was overcast, and the sky and the snow were a similar shade of dingy gray-white. Salt crystals crunched under her feet, and the air was sharp and cold. She felt as brittle as the thin layer of ice that coated the snowbanks. You are unlikely to be offered a long-term position…

  She hunched as she walked, tensing as the wind slipped inside her coat and chilled her. The fingers of her right hand were red and raw. In her haste that morning, she had forgotten her gloves, and she couldn't put her hand in her pocket because she was carrying the pile of newspapers from Dean Fowler's office. “Take them,” he had said, looking pained. “Please.”

  On top of the pile was the National Enquirer. Coincidentally, the cover story was an interview with Skye Elliot. “I Told Jake to Get Lost Because I Knew He Was No Good,” screamed the headline. In the bookstore that morning, Molly had glanced at the story, which consisted of Skye explaining that she had broken up with Jake Berenger because she had sensed that he was in a personal and professional decline. The cover featured a photo of Jake next to Skye in happier times, now depicted with a jagged cartoon rip down the center of the picture.

  For the first time in her life, Molly felt a kinship with Skye Elliot. No good, indeed, she thought darkly. He did this. It wasn't as if there were any other suspects. Carter would never betray her, and Molly had believed Elaine when she said that she was not the kind of person who deliberately ruined lives. Molly's agent, editor, and publisher had nothing to gain by suddenly shattering the Sandra myth, and that was the extent of the inner circle. Obviously, Jake had been the so-called anonymous source. He had exposed her secret to the papers. But why?

  Sheer malice was one possibility—he was paying her back for her refusal to help him. But that didn't seem like Jake's style. He was calculating and shrewd, and if he had decided to destroy her life, it wouldn't be for fun, it would be for profit. His own profit. He knew—because she had told him—that she might lose her job if the truth about Pirate Gold became public. He must think that forcing her into a desperate position would make her reconsider his offer.

  But why hadn't he bothered to threaten her first? If he had told her that he would expose her unless she went along with his plan, she would have had no choice but to agree. It would have been much simpler. This scorched-earth strategy did conceal Jake's identity as the villain, but it was also a big gamble. How could he be so sure that she would turn to him now?

  It was a mystery, but Molly didn't care about the details. She would turn to Jake, all right. As he had obviously guessed, she didn't have anywhere else to go. She didn't want to stay at Belden, to be patronized and pitied for four months before she was officially kicked out of the club. And he had made sure that she had nothing left to lose by cooperating with his scheme. But the game was not over—in fact, it was only beginning. Just like the pregnant Mary Morgan, Molly Shaw had a secret trump card, and she intended to pull it out when Jake least expected it. She was going to make him very sorry that he had ever dared to interfere with her life.

  Susan Horowitz buzzed Jake in the executive conference room at Berenger headquarters in Miami. “Sorry to disturb you,” she said, “but I have Molly Shaw on line four, and you told me that if she ever called, I should—”

  “Put her through,” Jake said, standing up. “I'll take the call at my desk.”

  He excused himself from the meeting and walked through the connecting door into his private office. He had seen the news about Molly that morning, after Cora called to tell him about it. Sonny Carmichael had phoned her to ask if she'd had something to do with the leak. Cora, horrified, had denied any involvement, but Jake had heard the same question in his mother's voice.

  “I didn't tell them,” Jake said. “You swore me to secrecy, remember? I wouldn't do that to you, or to Sonny.”

  “I didn't think so,” Cora said. She sounded distressed. “But I'm not sure that Sonny is convinced, and I don't blame him for being suspicious. A week after he told me the secret, it's all over the news. It's very embarrassing, Jake. I feel terrible.”

  “Why? It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong.”

  “I know, but it's such strange timing. Molly Shaw must be very upset. I know all about that school of hers, and how snobbish they are. This won't go over well at a place like Belden.”

  “How do you know that she didn't leak the news herself?” Jake asked. “Maybe she was tired of anonymity.”

  “Only if she was also tired of her professorship,” Cora said. “And she didn't seem to be. Poor thing. I think she's probably having a very bad day.”

  “Molly Shaw can take care of herself,” Jake said dryly. “Believe me, I know.”

  But the Molly Shaw on line four sounded very different from the confident woman who had recently told him to take his engagement offer and get stuffed. Her voice was subdued, as if she had gathered her remaining strength just before she called him.

  “You saw the news this morning?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Jake said. “I didn't think that the photo looked much like you.” To say the least. Apparently, she had been telling the truth when she said that the dowdy professor character really was her. Or, had been her until recently. Jake couldn't imagine why a woman as attractive as Molly would want to hide behind such unflattering hair, clothes, and glasses, but she obviously had her reason
s. He paused. She didn't sound good at all. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “No. This morning, the dean more or less told me that I wouldn't be offered tenure at Belden. I'm free to finish out the school year, but that's it for me.”

  “I'm very sorry,” Jake said. “If my opinion matters, I think they should be proud of you. It's great publicity for the school.”

  “They don't seem to agree.”

  “Then they're a bunch of clueless snobs.” In Jake's opinion, any school that considered a best-selling novelist a liability was so far removed from the real world that it ought to wither up and die.

  Molly was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Well, I know who did it. Who leaked the news, I mean.”

  “Who?”

  “One of my colleagues. She saw the book galleys sitting on my desk last year, and I'm sure that she's the one who told the newspapers. She's very competitive, and I guess she decided to get rid of me.”

  “I wouldn't have guessed that people were so ruthless inside the ivory tower of Academia,” Jake said. “Sounds more like my world.”

  “Does it? Well, you might be surprised to learn what we academics are capable of.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Jake asked. “Finish the year?”

  “They expect me to stay. A single semester at Belden is a lot better than nothing, and I suppose I should be grateful for it. Anyway, it wouldn't be very ethical of me to abandon them just before classes start. They would have to scramble to find someone to cover my teaching schedule.”

  “So you're staying.”

  “No,” Molly said. “I'm leaving. Let them scramble. I'm tired of being good, and I'm not going to hang on for four months, hoping to be redeemed. That's why I'm calling. I was wondering if your offer is still open.”

  That was exactly what Jake had been hoping to hear. This news leak might be trouble for Molly, but it was a lucky break for him. “It's still open,” he said.

  “Will my sudden…notoriety be a problem?”